Closer Sino-U.S. economic ties boon to both sides, global recovery(2)

China is currently the third largest exporting market for the United States. China's imports from the United States surged to 122 billion U.S. dollars in 2011, up 19.6 percent from a year earlier, despite the faltering global economy.

Moreover, U.S. companies continued to experience healthy market growth in China. Nearly 10 percent of respondents reported double-digit revenue growth in 2010, and more than 40 percent had revenue growth of more than 20 percent, USCBC President John Frisbie said in releasing the agency's 2011 China Business Environment Survey Results.

The two countries have pledged to promote economic cooperation, build a comprehensive and mutually beneficial economic partnership, and foster open and fair investment environments, according to the China-U.S. comprehensive framework for promoting strong, sustainable, and balanced economic growth and cooperation which was inked during the S&ED last year.

HUGE POTENTIAL

Experts said that although the two nations were in different economic development phases, there was great potential to strengthen bilateral ties across the entire spectrum including economy, trade and tourism, especially in a period when global recovery was threatened by intensifying strains and waning demand in the eurozone.

The two nations needed more and closer coordination as they acted "in parallel" against the risks, said Nicholas Lardy, a senior staff at Peterson Institute for International Economics, adding that both China and the United States should adopt appropriate policies to sustain economic growth, in order to help the world economy mitigate the negative impact of the eurozone debt crisis.

While the global economy was facing mounting downside risks, it was of great importance for China and the United States to further expand bilateral economic cooperation, Lardy said in a recent interview.

His view was echoed by Hills, who believed that there were many areas for closer cooperation between the two nations including implementing pledges of G20 and promoting the Doha Round trade talks.

"The latest 10 to 12 years demonstrated that the potential is huge, and lots have been realized. The liberalization that has occurred has allowed the trade flow to increase dramatically in this direction," noted Lardy, adding that the two countries should give the market a bigger role to play to further tap trade potential.

Industry observers including Frisbie said the Chinese market was increasingly important to the U.S. economy, companies and American job creation.

The world's top two economies were linked by "shared global responsibilities" and that how the two countries manage their relationship would shape the 21st century, Biden stressed.